


Puella Hacker Sayaka Magica: Revolution

by StarlightKnight



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Action/Adventure, Akuma Homura, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Post-Finale, Present Tense, Spoilers, Unofficial Sequel, Wraith Arc references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:24:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightKnight/pseuds/StarlightKnight
Summary: "One day, I will be your enemy.""I will never forget that you, Akemi Homura, are a devil!"... is what she said, but Akuma Homura's aggressive Barrier over the universe slowly eroded those memories. Berefit of purpose, Miki Sayaka has drifted into her last year of high school, sinking into depression and apathy. That is, until the Incubator finds her. Memory restored, Sayaka renews her oath: to overthrow the Devil who rebelled against God. To bring Revolution to this unchanging world!





	Puella Hacker Sayaka Magica: Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> Music that Means Something: Spyair - Rage of Dust

Miki Sayaka sits bolt-upright in her bed, shaken, sweating, gasping for breath. She's had it again, the nightmare she can never remember. Or rather, being awake is the nightmare. When she's asleep, she's sure she dreams of better things. She's sure that the reason she wakes up terrified is because she _wakes up_... but she's used to it, and she breathes deeply, and the terror passes from her body, and the existential dread sets in. The feeling that she's going nowhere, doing nothing. In a way, the blind terror that drives her to panic is preferable. It makes her feel alive, makes her heart pound. When she was younger - only four or five years, but it feels like five thousand - she liked a coffee in the morning, to pep her up. The idea is hilarious to her now, even though it doesn't make her smile.

Once, the idea of dressing in a high-school uniform had appealed to her. The black uniforms with red highlights had been so cool, so mature; trading her sweater and knee-length skirt for the refined blazer and a skirt that went down to her ankle made her feel almost like a proper lady. That feeling had lasted for about one week. Now Sayaka loathes the thing. She hardly bothers to fix her tie, ignores the crinkles in her skirt, wears her blazer askew and doesn't care. The teachers have long since given up trying to get her to fix it.

* * *

She's walking the sakura lane when her best friend's irrepressably-cheerful voice reaches her ears.  
"Good morning, Sayaka!"  
  
For a moment, Sayaka is jolted out of the grey world she drifts through. Kaname Madoka will always be a bright spot; she colours the world just by _being_... but the girl standing next to her seems to take all of it, like Madoka's colours belong to only her. Sayaka isn't sure when she started hating Akemi Homura, but she's almost thankful for it, the only strong feeling that seems to come through her heart nowadays. Homura is always graceful, her uniform always perfect, dark hair fluttering at her every move like private applause, but she always seems tired, even _old_ , compared to her girlfriend. The two are seldom apart nowadays, and Sayaka has become used to putting on a smile around them for Madoka's sake, despite her enduring fury.  
"Hey, you two."  
  
"My, Sayaka, were you in a rush this morning? You look a frightful mess."  
  
Right. _That's_ why she didn't like Homura. The girl sneers at her from behind a veneer of concern, carefully phrasing it so that Sayaka hears the intended insult loud and clear, while still passing over the cutely-naive Madoka's pigtailed head. Sayaka forces herself to smile cheerfully, as if she's going along with the joke.  
  
"Ye... yeah, you got me. I should have grabbed some toast on the way out!"  
  
Blessedly, Madoka laughs, and the two stroll on with a wave. Sayaka waves back, getting in at least one genuinely happy moment before her sun and its assosciated black hole drift out of her orbit.

* * *

There's a saying that goes like 'if you do what you love, you will never have to work a day in your life'. Sayaka began studying music under that premise and very quickly discovered that everyone who ever said that was a liar. It's not that she's bad at the work - years of exposure mean that much of the theory is her putting names and formal concepts behind subconscious recognition - but that having it drilled into her day after day makes her not even want to hear a single note. In a way, it's almost too easy for her to put the theory together, and her brain drifts, leaving her detached even from something she used to love. Her grades are drifting, too; she'd scored highly on her tests in her first year, but now she just can't bring herself to put in the effort to think hard or study, and her teachers are beginning to complain that her compositions are bland and uninspired.  
_Of course they're uninspired,_ Sayaka thinks; what is there to inspire her? Her sun and moon were both taken by other people. Inevitably, the complaints turn into disappointment, about how she used to be such a pleasure to teach, how she was such a brilliant student. The first time she'd heard it, she'd felt crushed by the words, to know that she'd let people down. Now she barely hears them. It's not even mildly upsetting anymore; she's come to accept that letting people down is all she does.

* * *

Lunch brings with it at least one bright spot: the opportunity to share a meal with Sakura Kyouko. If Madoka is Sayaka's sun, who paints her grey world in colour, then Kyouko is the stars that warm it; even in a casual setting, her passion and personality burn brightly. Sayaka wants to leech off it like Homura does with Madoka, but spending time with her is all she can really do. At one point Kyouko had been crashing on her couch, but when the high school had begun offering boarding positions, Kyouko had taken that up instead, and while Sayaka couldn't really discourage her for any valid reason, her home has felt colder ever since. The pair sit in a patch of shade under the sakura trees, ignoring passers-by talking about the two delinquent-looking girls - Kyouko wears her uniform even more sloppily than Sayaka, and Sayaka has to fix the buttons on her blouse to be lined up right.  
"I can do that myself, you know."  
  
"You can, but you won't."  
Kyouko can't dispute the point. The two don't have much to talk about, but even passing the time in comfortable silence makes Sayaka happy, just for a little bit, just until the bell rings and she has to go back to the drudgery of class.

* * *

"Sayaka, are you alright? You look tired. Be careful going home."  
Hitomi tells her that while they're sitting next to each other in General Math. Technically, the two of them are still friends, despite Hitomi swooping in on Kyousuke and leaving Sayaka kicking herself. Sayaka can tell Hitomi cares about her, and Hitomi is worried for her, and Sayaka hates her all the more for it. The feeling is completely unfair and she knows it, but all she can do is stop it from rising to the surface. Instead, she puts on a smile that she knows Hitomi can tell is fake.  
  
"I will. Promise."

* * *

She doesn't. She goes home the same way she always does, listless, hardly noticing the world around her. She doesn't notice the air growing thick around her, doesn't notice the streets starting to twist and turn, until she looks up and realises that she's completely lost. The sun has long-since disappeared over the horizon, and the industrial alleys she's wandered are only lit by the ambience of the city. Like a living thing, the city has swallowed her whole. Sayaka's breath comes heavy in her throat. The thing in front of her - emaciated and gaunt, the size of a house, skeletal body wrapped in a simple cloth, its head starting to disappear into thin air, pixellated and shimmering, like glitterdust in the air - reaches its hand out, and black mist pours from its mouth, snaking towards her.  
Sayaka understands, somehow, that if it touches her, her life is over. It will suck out everything that makes her 'Miki Sayaka', and she'll join the other vegetables in the hospital, her body kept moving by machines while her mind is absent. _Would that really be so different from now?_

Sayaka never gets the chance to find out, because a black bullet falls from the sky and crashes into the creature, knocking it down flat with a single blow. Sayaka stumbles on her feet as the shockwave washes over her, like a sudden gust of wind, and puts a hand up to shield herself, looking through her fingers at her saviour.  
Only, it's even more terrifying than the beast that had just attacked her. Or rather, if it's a 'beast', then what just saved Sayaka is a 'monster'. It looks like a twisted parody of a girl, as if someone had been told to draw a human girl without ever seeing one, and then that scribble came to life. It moves without regard for the passage of its own body through the world, sickening and painful to look at. Sayaka can only catch glimpses of it as it falls on the skeletal demon. Doll-like, with straw-blonde hair and big blue eyes like saucers, it wears a bizarre mockery of a black pencil dress and carries a simple staff with a rounded head, like a long mace - but the weapon goes ignored, planted into the huge creature's chest to pin it to the ground, while the monster doll goes to work with its bare hands, with its too-big mouth, tearing it apart.  
A real creature would spread gore across the alley, but the beast just disintegrates piece by piece, disappearing into the same glittery stuff that its head had faded into. It howls and moans, but the monster doll won't stop - its hands, somehow wickedly-sharp, cut through the beast's blue flesh, grasp its bones, tear them out and crush them into metallic powder, the predator silent as it destroys its prey.  
No, 'predator' is the wrong word - a predator eats its prey. The doll is a monster that loves to kill. It has no plans with what to do with the gaunt beast after it stops moving. Finally, it grasps its weapon, swings it, and shatters the beast in one stroke, as if vaporizing it. The impact smashes in the wall of the building behind where the beast had been, but the doll simply raises her staff and the debris rises, reassembles itself, fits perfectly back into place, as if it was never knocked askew.

And then the doll looks at Sayaka.

Sayaka understands immediately. This killing doll exists in Mitakihara, but nobody has ever mentioned it. Therefore, those who see it are all obliterated - just like the demon the doll had struck down. There are no rumors, because there are no survivors to spread them.

The gap between them closes in an instant. The crater the doll leaves in the asphalt from kicking off it reseals behind her - the doll leaves no evidence behind. It brings its staff down like lightning. Sayaka understands immediately; the heavy orb at the staff's head will shatter her own and turn her body into red paste. The instant seems to stretch into infinity. Contrary to what people say, her life doesn't flash before her eyes. Instead, a sense of peace falls over her. _Ah, this is how it ends._ The thought rings in her mind. Observation, but not emotion, like she's stepped out of her own body.  
But the blow never comes. It's not her imminent demise distorting her perception of time - the doll has actually stopped, as if frozen solid in the air above her.  
**Good. I made it in time.**  
The voice echoes in Sayaka's head, not her ears, and she becomes aware of something... furry? Squishy? Wrapped around her left leg. She looks down and discovers that a strange white thing has attached itself to her calf by one of its long ears. It's almost cat-like, but it has huge red eyes with round pupils, not the kind a real cat has - not to mention, she can see on its ragged fur, it has a variety of red markings... and then there's the golden halos around its long ears.  
"... what are you supposed to be?"  
  
**We don't have time. Pick me up and run for it. I can't keep time stopped for much longer.**  
... it's an odd direction, but Sayaka obeys it. The alternative is getting her head caved in, after all. She may have accepted her death, but that didn't mean she was going to seek it. She picks the cat-thing up and bolts for it.

Long behind her, the doll's mace cuts through the empty air and smashes into the asphalt, caving in the surface work and opening up the sewers below. The doll blinks, confused, and looks around, wondering where its prey has gone. Then it hears something and its head snaps around, twisting unnaturally over its shoulder. Its work is not yet done. It raises its staff, orders the damaged earth to repair itself, and leaps into the sky, moving over and through the humans in its domain, invisible to all but a select few.

* * *

"So? Explain yourself."  
Sayaka has always been the active type, and despite her mad dash through the frozen streets, she's alright. The weird animal that rescued her, however, slumps into the grass. Sayaka has found a deserted little green park and seated herself on the swingset.  
  
**My name is Kyubey... but rather, the name you know me by is 'Incubator'. Miki Sayaka... do you like this world? Do you feel like you have everything?**  
  
Sayaka pauses in mid-breath. No, of course she doesn't. She's always itched. She feels like she should have more. She should _be_ more. She knows that's what she dreams about. When she doesn't speak, Kyubey continues talking in its odd, child-like voice.  
**That's because she took it from you. That girl... no, that Devil. Akemi Homura. That Devil stole Kaname Madoka, and she stole the life of Miki Sayaka. Your memories, your place, your very 'self'. That's why you hate her. That's why you feel like this is the nightmare, not the dreams you can't remember.**  
  
"... what do you want?" Sayaka deflects the conversation as she tries to process it. What she's being told is ridiculous. It's ridiculous, but she can't help but feel that it's the truth. She almost feels like she can remember something, but then it slips away from her, like some great beast lurking under the sea. Kyubey looks up at her. Its body is ragged and beaten, and Sayaka realises that patches of its fur have been torn away, revealing something pink and fleshy beneath, but it looks more like fruit than meat. One of its legs is broken, which is why it collapsed as soon as she put it down.  
  
**Our role is to preserve this universe from entropy. To that end, we manipulated Akemi Homura, so that we could observe the Law of Cycles. Unfortunately... it seems our plans worked too well. Akemi Homura took possession of part of the Law of Cycles... the record of the human named 'Kaname Madoka', and became 'the Devil that overthrew God'. She has sealed this universe off, and hunts the Demons that feed on negative emotions, for Madoka's sake. You were... problematic. She sealed away your memories, so that you would be unable to oppose her, and hid away your powers.**  
**But, Miki Sayaka, that Devil is not omnipotent. She is not omnipresent. She entrusts the hunting to her Clara Doll familiars. Her Barrier that covers this universe is a 'self-sufficient closed circle'. In other words, there is a chance. Not a guarantee, but a possibility. I had to wait until she grew tired of tormenting me, but I was able to find it - a shard of your power, granted by the Law of Cycles.**  
Kyubey rises on its three good legs, trying to stand proud. **In the past, we made contracts with humans. Those humans gained great powers, but were cursed to disappear when their life was exhausted.**  
  
"So... you want me to make a contract with you and... what? Become a magical girl?" It sounds so ridiculous when she says it out loud, Sayaka can't help but laugh. To her surprise, Kyubey laughs as well - the concept is obviously not very familiar to it, so its laugh is awkward, but the self-mocking tone is unmissable.  
  
**When I was trapped in this closed-off universe, that power was lost to me. But, Miki Sayaka, that is what I want from you. To make a contract... no, a deal - an oath - with me. I will return your memories, and the shard of the power of the Law of Cycles. In return...**  
  
"In return?"

Kyubey looks at her directly, and opens its mouth. Speaking in words is ironically alien to it, but it does it anyway, as if to underscore how serious it's being.  
"Defeat that Devil, Akemi Homura, and save this universe."

Sayaka is silent for a long time, trying to absorb everything. The most ridiculous part is how much she believes it. Actually, it's not like she 'believes it', but that Kyubey is saying things she 'already knew', like she'd grasped the truth of the world and then lost it. She opens her mouth to respond -  
**Look out!**  
  
Her body reacts before her brain processes the command. Sayaka dives forward, clearing the swing set just in time for it to be smashed flat, spitting metal and tanbark into the air. Had she been caught in that blow, she'd have been turned into jelly. She kneels up and looks back over her shoulder, but she already knows what's there: the killing Doll. It twitches as it stares at her, mouth unmoving as it lets out a hideous, child's laugh. "... can you do that thing again?"  
  
**I'm sorry. That was the last of this shield fragment's power. You need to decide now, Miki Sayaka. Will you die as a human? Or will you swear this oath with me, and become part of the Law of Cycles once again?**  
Sayaka more feels than hears the Doll move, striking down at her from above. Her mouth forms the words. She doesn't hear them over her heart pounding in her ears, but it's enough for Kyubey.

The clang of metal on metal rings out over the park. The impact rips through the grassy earth, tearing chunks out of it, but Sayaka doesn't flinch. Her white cape billows around her as the air settles. Dressed in blue from neck to toe, her Jewel Seed gleams from where it's affixed at her navel. Her sword rests over her shoulder - not the one she's used to; this is a double-edged arming sword, still in its sheathe, but more than sufficient to repel Ibari's attack.  
Sayaka looks over her shoulder at it. The Clara Doll is obviously stunned that something resisted it; its expression twists in something akin to shock. It's like Ibari's looking at a different person. Sayaka's blue eyes burn brightly in the dark of the night, a far cry from the dull expression on the face of the girl it had tried to kill in the alley. And then, Sayaka turns her gaze from the Clara Doll, and addresses Kyubey instead.  
"What is this, Incubator? Are you sure you got the right shard?"  
  
Kyubey has attempted to retreat to a safe distance - as much as there is one - but it's still able to answer, even as it limps away to seek shelter. **Even Akemi Homura's power couldn't 'erase' your powers. This universe is a 'self-sufficient closed circle'. In other words, 'data' cannot be removed from this universe. All she could do was change its form. She split it into as many shards as she could. This one is the most basic of basics: 'Miki Sayaka is a magical girl knight who wields a sword'. The data that talks about what kind of sword it is in another shard.**  
  
"As usual, that girl is making things a chore for the rest of us!" Sayaka swings her sword up and off her shoulder, letting the point crash to the earth, trapping the head of Ibari's staff under it. "But...!"  
Ibari releases its staff and tries to bring its claws to bear, but Sayaka's elbow crashes into its flat face. The sensation is like ivory or wood, not flesh, and it leaves cracks echoing through the Doll's pale face. Ibari staggers back, clutching at its face, howling in its child voice - it's never been hurt before. Sayaka turns on her heel, drawing her sword from its sheathe. She's not used to it, so she wields it inelegantly, but against a target writhing in pain, treating the heavy blade like a club is sufficient. Ibari tries to evade her, but Sayaka doesn't let it escape; she waits for it to move and lets the weight of her blade crash down on it. She can't help the grin that forms on her face. Of course, torturing it won't serve any purpose. But after three years of being in Homura's prison, the catharsis overwhelms her.

Until Ibari manages to get its staff back, that is. Despite its doll body cracked and dented in places, it scoops its staff up with frustrating agility, and swings it around itself to get some space. Sayaka hisses softly. She remembers the fight inside Homura's Barrier; each Clara Doll was an even match for a magical girl, even her and Nagisa, and here, she's not at full power... but she won't back down, either. She falls into the rhythm of Ibari's swipes and moves into them, swinging her blade across to catch the staffhead at full extension, intent on knocking Ibari off-balance.  
  
Instead, her sword shatters in her hands, utterly destroyed by the impact. Ibari immediately comes around for another swipe, capitalizing on the advantage, and Sayaka draws her hands together, summoning up another blade -  
  
Except, no sword comes to her, and Ibari's attack hits her dead in the ribs.

* * *

Sayaka comes to coughing blood and bile up into the grass. Her vision is blurry, but she can't have been out for very long. She landed a good twenty meters away from where she started, launched in an arc by the Clara Doll's blow, and now she's lying in a crater of her own design, the grass and earth churned up by her impact. She clutches at her chest. _It's broken, it's broken, oh god it's broken..._ Everything inside her chest is messed up, her ribs powdered and shattered, piercing through her flesh. Her lungs are shredded. But this shouldn't be a problem. With her wish, she should regenerate soon.  
... no, she should have regenerated already. She tries to call up the healing magic she'd learned from Mami, or to at least turn off her sense of pain, but none of it comes. "Why?" Sayaka burbles the word around the blood in her throat.  
  
**'Magic' has no place here. This is Akemi Homura's universe now. 'Magical girls' don't exist here. This closed-off universe is like an infinitely repeating computer program. To manipulate that environment using an external power, the Law of Cycles - at that point, it's no longer 'magic'. Rather, you would call it 'hacking'. Don't call for a miracle. The tools you need to use are a part of you. You simply need to apply them in this 'system'.**  
  
Weirdly, Sayaka gets it. This almost makes more sense to her than how magic had been initially. If you change the instrument, the piece sounds completely different. She coughs out another lungful of blood and focuses herself. Her body is the composition. Ibari had messed up the notes, but she can put them back into place. She restores the song piece by piece, note by note, until all the chords are in place. The composition called 'Miki Sayaka' stands up and spits out the last of the blood in her mouth.  
"So I'm no longer a 'magical girl', but rather, a 'hacker girl'... no, computers don't suit me. Let's say I'm a 'composer girl'. Incubator! I'll stick to that oath. I'll bring revolution to this world that refuses to turn. But, before that..."

Sayaka holds out her hand, and the air sparks and flickers around it. Her arming sword, bare-bladed, appears in her outstretched palm, and she aims the point at the slowly-advancing Clara Doll - now it moves cautiously, aware that it's fighting something that can hurt it, not a victim to be tortured and mutilated.

"I'll compose a funeral march for this killing doll!"

**Author's Note:**

> The correct term is actually "cracker", but that's basically unused in Japanese, so I went with the English loanword instead. I used 'Demon' instead of 'Wraith' because I like the interplay with 'the Devil' being opposed to 'Demons'.


End file.
